Chapter 2: Moving In

Isagi rides the bus to the Blue Lock complex, where Anri hands every arrival a jersey stamped with a number and a letter. Assigned 299 and the letter Z, he follows the marking to a shared dormitory and is greeted by a relieved Kira, glad to spot a familiar face. Inside, a flung shirt smacks Isagi in the face, drawing an apology from Kunigami and a warning to mind his step, and he nearly stumbles over a boy asleep on the floor. Once he changes into his kit, a cheerful second-year forward named Gurimu Igarashi introduces himself, explaining that he grew up in a temple and struck a deal with his father to dodge inheriting it if he turns professional, a dream reignited by Ego's speech.

Ego then addresses the room through a monitor, declaring the occupants both roommates and rivals. The figure on each jersey marks their standing among the program's three hundred hopefuls, a rank that shifts with training and match outcomes. Only the top five will earn places on Japan's U-20 squad bound for the World Cup, while the eliminated face a lifelong ban from it. What he wants, he says, is raw ego. He then launches a round of tag lasting one hundred thirty-six seconds, warning that whoever holds the tag when time expires is cut. Igarashi, ranked lowest, starts as the hunted, and Ego frames the drill as a window into the selfishness that defines strikers.

As the clock runs, Igarashi lunges at Isagi but misses, while Kira rages that no genuine professionals train this way and refuses to let Ego dictate his future. Igarashi's attempt on a dozing Bachira backfires when he is kicked in the face, and Kunigami, scolding the foul play, ends up tagged and becomes the pursuer. Shielding himself with Isagi, Igarashi leaves him winded and third to hold the tag. Chasing the lowest-ranked Igarashi looks like the safe route, but with the boy hurt and pleading to be spared, Isagi wrestles with the choice, then turns toward stronger opponents rather than end a helpless rival's career.

Bachira strips the ball from him and, in the final seconds, redirects it so that Isagi, acting on pure instinct, drives it into Kira's face just as time hits zero, leaving Kira as the last holder. Ego rules Kira expelled. Furious, Kira insists tag has nothing to do with football, only for Ego to counter that the room matches a penalty box's proportions, that most goals come from that zone, and that both fleeing and pursuing sharpen positioning, dribbling, and finishing. He notes a player touches the ball for roughly one hundred thirty-six seconds a match, the very length of the drill, then replays how Kira wasted his last instant. Ego praises Isagi and Bachira for hunting bigger prey, calling that tenacity the egoism he is after.

Kira apologizes as Isagi tries to stop him, but the expelled player storms out, leaving Isagi to question why he struck him. Bachira reveals he passed because he trusted Isagi to strike, insisting results are the only thing that count here. Ego concedes the exercise is absurd yet no more so than a world of endless winning and losing, then announces that the eleven survivors, among them Raichi, Kuon, Iemon, Imamura, Naruhaya, Gagamaru, Igarashi, Chigiri, Kunigami, Bachira, and Isagi, now form Blue Lock's Team Z. The seventy-seven-page chapter, titled Nyuryo in Japanese, is adapted across the first two episodes of the anime.